3D Fire Fighting by Paul Grimwood, Ed Hartin, John McDonough, Shan Raffel, brings together four tactical firefighting specialists from USA, Australia and the UK. Each author brings his own area of expertise to the publication in a way never seen before, truly from an international perspective.

The book and CD-ROM explore new approaches to tactical venting options and fire confinement strategies. It also offers primary teaching aids relative to various forms of rapid fire progress, CFBT (Compartment Fire Behavior Training), and tactical fire attack (smooth-bore versus water-fog versus CAFS). It demonstrates how a safer and more effective approach to tackling structure fires can result in reducing life losses dramatically, which has been shown in the countries where 3D Fire Fighting has evolved. Learn how to implement CFBT training in your fire department by using tried and tested methods based on the original Swedish model with safe operating practices developed in the UK.

The term 3D Fire Fighting refers to techniques and tactics used by firefighters to assert an element of control over deteriorating fire conditions inside fire-involved structures, or compartments. This objective of taking control of interior conditions at the outset of fire operations is based upon the ‘safe-person-concept’ where an immediate risk-based approach, evaluating risk versus gain, is applied at the earliest opportunity, i.e.; on fire service arrival.
In the past it has been common for firefighters to direct their initial attack strategy towards the visible fuel-phase fire while neglecting the hidden dangers of the gaseous-phase fire or exposure. This fundamental error has cost many firefighters their lives on several occasions.
The techniques and tactics used to safely gain access to a fire compartment or structure, advance in safely, and mount an effective attack on the fire are described in some detail in the text. This training manual intends to show firefighters that compartment fires in the gaseous-phase are potentially more lethal than those in the fuel-phase. There are references to traditional forms of mounting an attack on the fuel-phase fire, as well as the relatively ‘new-wave’ approaches developed by firefighters in Sweden and England during the 1980s for dealing with the hazards of flashover, backdraft, smoke explosion, and other forms of fire gas ignition. These techniques include zone control (buffer and safe-zoning), 3D water-fog applications into the gaseous-phase to suppress flaming and inert un-ignited fire-gas accumulations, tactical venting options that address both opening up and closing down (confining) a fire, as well as direct (straight-stream) and indirect (fog) methods of fire suppression.